


Enchanters

by Abyssiniana



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Circle of Magi, Imprisonment, M/M, Mage Abuse and Oppression, Minor Anders/Karl Thekla, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 20:05:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssiniana/pseuds/Abyssiniana
Summary: My piece forPatron of the Arts,a Dragon Age Fanzine! It was based off the song"Enchanters".__«Madness does not come in unless you prepare it a good welcoming party.»





	Enchanters

Someone said that madness does not come in unless you prepare a good welcoming party. Lying in his own terror, embraced to his confusion, a young mage recalled the first time he had heard that madness does not come in unless you prepare a good welcoming party. As to why he even thought of that, he didn’t know nor cared at this point, and the person who had first said that was nothing more than a blurred memory to him.

The stone on the walls grew mossy in between the cracks, and his golden hair gradually became dull, spindly at the tips. Eyes that were once fiery, felt apathetic, and cried dried unsalted tears, the rusty iron of chains burnt the raw flesh around his wrists, the spell that bound them preventing any use of magic by slowly draining the mana out of his system. His head was heavy, undernourished body frigid, emotions tilting from intense anger and revolt to sheer despair and anguish in intervals less than healthy.

Solitary confinement does that to a man.

How long had he been there, anyway? Minutes stretched into hours and hours into days faster than the mage could keep track of the time. There was no light to guide him and thus the tally marks sketched with blood on the walls meant little when it came to accuracy. All this suffering over a fight for freedom.

He never asked for his ability to retain and manipulate the energy of the Fade, the command of the fire in his palm or the electricity in his eyes. Take it back! He never wanted to be a mage. But so was the will of the Maker, to have him living like a cloistered rat, puppet to those born without the gift and under the brainwash of a misinterpretation of fake prophesized texts.

Who could blame him for wanting to run away?

There was a knock on the door – or maybe he just thought there was – and then he remembered;

_“Madness does not come in unless you prepare it a good welcoming party.”_

Those words were written in blood over the stone slabs of the wall, along with a couple unidentifiable figures he somehow recognized as templars. An army of them, running away in terror from the projectile blood coming from the “mouth” of a bigger stain of blood with a long tail.

Heh. A cat. If he had a cat, he would have it fighting for freedom and eradicating all templars on sight; spiting fire and chewing them like toys. That would be grand.

The knock was heard once more, and the mage knew almost for sure that this time it came from the back of his mind.

_“Madness does not come in unless you prepare it a good welcoming party.”_

At great cost, the male tilted his head down to the floor to follow the inexistent logic of the delusional drawings he didn’t remember making, the red ink tracing what resembled a small figure. A child, perhaps, with two adults at their side. A house too, and a smaller house with little stains that could be understood as little farm animals. A barn, he supposed. In his head, the pictures came to life, dancing to a song played by a memory long gone. Once, he had a family. Caring parents, however stern, and he loved the feeling of grass on his bare feet. Mother always yelled at him to put his sandals on but how could he live if he never stepped on pointy rocks and scratched his knees when he fell? She would offer to peel the orange for him, but how could he be living if he didn’t pull it off with his teeth and nails, if he didn’t feel the petrifying acidity that became sweet just for the act of audacity?

He lost Mum. Dad. Karl, too. Now he was on the verge of losing himself.

_“Madness does not come in unless you prepare it a good welcoming party.”_

The fantasy of his drawings was erased by the sudden invasion of light. The small metal drawer on the door was opened, the flash illuminating the area of the picture – and very precisely as well. Much like the barn and the bond that tied him to his parents, it was burned by the hands of a child who didn’t know better. Their home, the concept of a loving place to feel comfortable in… charred to the ground, by a magical gesture he couldn’t explain at the time.

A tray of food was carelessly pushed into the cell, dry bread and regurgitated leftovers mixed with water (soup, they called it). Something else caught his attention before the small gate was closed. With the last rays of light emitted by the candle, a knife reflected, the tingling noise of the blade indicating that it fell into the cell. The footsteps of heavy armor strolled away, the dagger forgotten or not missed at all.

_… Oh._

In his prayers he asked the Maker for answers. Was this His final remark? A hint to be picked up and followed through? And he heard it, this time louder, closer, _“Madness does not come in unless you prepare it a good welcoming party.”_

_Let me in._

Just that one time, he opened the door and welcomed his madness.

 

~*~

 

The imprisoned mage was shaken by a foreign hand. “How did this happen?!”, the voice is serious, grave, however familiar, in a way. First Enchanter Irving…? He tried to stop the blood coming out of Anders’ chest, as he yelled at the templar squire to whom the meal distribution had been assigned to. It seemed she had forgotten to remove the knife from the tray after cutting the bread in two pieces – to split between the two prisoners in current solitary confinement – and returned when she heard grumbling of pain coming from inside the cell. Anders felt weaker than even, confused at the healing light irradiating from the old man’s mature and qualified hands. His skin was being sewn back together, leaving a dormant ticklish sensation on the area above his heart.

“Anders?! Oh, thank the Maker!”, the First Enchanter exhaled in relief when he saw nearly faded amber eyes opening slightly, and Anders snickered at him with a bloody mouth.

The Maker had a wicked sense of humor. To tease him with the relief of death and then take it away from his reach? Mocking him as He had always done. The young man wondered if there were bigger plans for someone like him. Was there more to be done and more to hope for than the atrocious future he had conformed with?

“He’ll be okay… But please help me carry him to the infirmary. I will not have this boy caged in that hole another second.”, First Enchanter’s lap wasn’t a very comfortable pillow, but his fingertips combing Anders’ hair off his forehead felt… warm. Protecting. Intimate, almost. The squire argued back, bickering about how it would go against the protocol to release a punished mage before their time was due and the Knight Commander would make a fuss around it, but the First Enchanter would have none of that. Not when a life, as precious as any other, was at stake.

As his consciousness faded, Anders considered that while the world was divided there would be no justice. The warriors and the archers and the kings and the templars and the housewives and the pantry servants, why were they so different from one another? If anything, mages had a gift! They could do good and protect the people but was that such an upfront concept that their minds couldn’t handle?

How many men and women, human and elven, young and old, living beings with no fault of being born with the touch of the Fade, had attempted – or succeeded – to take their own lives, just for being told they were an abomination? The templars were the real demons, and everyone within that cursed tower in the middle of Lake Calenhad knew that.

Anders… He cried, cradled by the gentle embrace of the First Enchanter. This mage felt lonely and abandoned for most of his crappy life; it took a hand stroking his sweaty hairline to remind him that he and the mages had each other.

And that was all they really needed.


End file.
